


Never What You Expect

by starsallnight



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:09:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsallnight/pseuds/starsallnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should have been a quick and easy mission, but nothing is ever easy with Ethan Hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never What You Expect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdwegian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdwegian/gifts).



> Warning: Light violence, nothing out of line with the movie itself. 
> 
> Also, this is set after Ghost Protocol, but assumes the lead-up to Rogue Nation never happened.

Their target was a man named Earl Saunders. He had been a drug dealer in his youth, and as his business took off he had moved into progressively more exotic and lethal trades. While the bulk of his business was still in narcotics, it was his attempts to sell weapons-grade plutonium on the black market that had brought him to the IMF’s attention. They had enough evidence to arrest him whenever they wanted, but there was no guarantee that they’d be able to seize his assets in enough time to keep his associates from destroying his buyer’s list, which was a significant prize its own right. So the IMF had decided it would be best to steal the information while Saunders still thought he was secure, and _then_ arrest him. 

The plan was to break into his safe and steal his back-up hard-drives during his annual Christmas party.

“I don’t understand why so many of our plans end up involving fancy parties in exotic houses and hotels,” said Benji as he checked their comms. “I’m beginning to get a little suspicious. It’s almost as if _some people_ like drinking ludicrously expensive alcohol while flirting with attractive, mysterious strangers and are designing these missions to fit.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” said Ethan, in a highly over-exaggerated defensive tone. 

“It makes perfect sense from a practical standpoint,” interjected Jane. The top of her red dress was tight, emphasizing the curves of her chest, and the bottom swung out from her waist, giving her ample room to hide the weaponry and toolkit she was sneaking in past security. “It gives you a good excuse to be wherever you need to be, and there are so many new people and strangers that you never look out of place. Any extra security is negated by the fact that they’re spread thin over a large group of people.” She shifted her skirt around a few times, making sure that nothing suspicious was visible under the folds of her dress. “And if things go wrong, the crowd creates chaos and makes it easier to escape.” 

“Well, that all sounds very convenient, doesn’t it,” said Benji. 

Jane rolled her eyes at him. “I’m sorry you’re stuck monitoring things from here, but I’ll lift you a bottle of champagne if I can find the time,” she said. 

“I would say that I can’t be bribed that easily, but I think we all know that I can be bribed just that easily,” replied Benji. 

Brandt ran through the plan again in his head as the others talked. It was a good plan. Nice and easy. There wasn't a whole lot of security getting into the party, and once they were in they should have plenty of time to work on the safe. They _always_ had a good plan, but Brandt could count the number of times an IMF mission had gone exactly according plan on one hand. And of those missions, none had involved Ethan Hunt. 

“Are you ready?” asked Ethan. He and Jane were close enough to Brandt that he could smell the mingled scents of their cologne and perfume - pine and citrus, mostly, in honor of the holiday. Ethan and Brandt were dressed more conservatively than Jane in their dark suits, but even so, Ethan looked far to good to simply blend into the crowd like he was supposed to. 

Brandt sighed. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Everything went to hell even quicker than he had expected. 

They had all arrived separately, to cover their association with each other, but Brandt had been keeping an eye on the other two even as he made idle conversation with the strangers around him. Every now and then one or the other of them would disappear behind the giant Christmas tree in the center of the room, and Brandt would move with the crowd to keep his eyes on them. After a half hour, Jane slipped away, leaving only Ethan. Benji’s voice would pop up in the comm in his ear periodically, letting him know the situation was normal. He was paying just enough attention to his companions to keep up his end of the conversation, when out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. 

It all happened extremely quickly - he turned, and saw one of the guards pulling his gun out of his coat. He followed the guard’s line of sight, and it was obvious that he was looking directly at Ethan, who was still energetically flirting with some woman twice his age as her husband looked on in irritation. Brandt had no idea how the guard had made Ethan - maybe he’d been a cheap hired goon for some other asshole criminal Ethan had taken down on an earlier mission, or maybe their was a hole in their security and Ethan's picture had been passed around to the wrong people. It really didn’t matter at that point - Ethan had been made, and he was about to get shot. 

“Oh, God dammit,” Brandt muttered. At least the guy was close to him. With no time to come up with a better plan, Brandt lunged the guard before he could fully get the gun up. A wild shot went off as they both crashed to the ground and the gun went skidding across the floor. Brandt heard screams and glass shattering as the guests dropped their glasses in shock. 

“Fucking spies!” screamed the guard as he grabbed for Brandt's jacket. As Brandt was trying to get free the guard slammed his fist into Brandt’s stomach, knocking the air out of him. Brandt pulled back and managed to get in a retaliatory hit, giving him time to catch his breath. A chaotic mass of panicked guests was in their way, but the rest of the guards would be on him any second. Brandt could deal with the guard by himself without much issue, but the guy was big and strong enough that the struggle was going to take a minute, which would give the rest of Saunders's security time to surround him. Benji was screaming in his ear, wanting to know what had happened and not being much help. His mind was still racing for a solution when a shot rang out and the guard went limp. 

“Time to go,” said Ethan, holding the now deceased guard’s gun.

“Oh my God, what are you two doing,” came Benji’s voice, crackling over their comms as Ethan hauled Brandt to his feet and they ran for the doors. “We had this all worked out! _You always do this._ ”

“Best exit, Benji! Now!” said Ethan as they hit a corridor. They had highly sensitive GPS on them, and Benji had a map of the floor plans, so he should know exactly where they were. 

“There's a staircase straight ahead, take it,” said Benji. 

Unfortunately, Saunders’s security, who had refrained from opening fire while they were in the ballroom, likely out of fear of accidentally hitting a guest, had no such fear of firing in the open hallway. Ethan pulled them into a side room to avoid the gunfire and threw a chair under the door to block it. 

“Or, instead of following my suggestions, you can just ignore me,” said Benji. “There should at least be a window in the room you’re in, right?” 

Ethan had already seen it, and he raised his gun to shoot out the glass. “Yeah, lucky for us,” he said, as he knocked out the sharp edges left behind.

“Lucky? We’re at least four stories from the ground!” said Brandt. 

Ethan laughed. Actually laughed, despite the fact that the guards were already shooting the door out and would be inside and shooting _them_ in less than a minute. “Come on," he said, "we've both had to deal with a lot worse than a four-story jump.” That was unfortunately true, but not exactly reassuring at the moment. “Besides,” Ethan said, gesturing through the window to the roof of a building across the narrow alley, “we can make that.” 

If he was going to leap across an alleyway, Brandt would have preferred a larger window to launch himself out of and an even narrower alley, but they didn’t exactly have a whole lot of options. Ethan leapt out of the window first, rolling onto the roof below, and Brandt followed him as the splintered door gave way behind him. 

His leap was less graceful than Ethan’s had been - a shot from one of the guards came so close that he felt it, and as he shifted his arm caught on a piece of jagged glass still lodged in the window pane. He landed on the opposing rooftop on the arm that he’d just cut on the glass, but he didn’t have time to think about the pain, or even rejoice at the fact that he wasn't a mass of broken bones at the bottom of the alley. He was up and moving, crossing the rooftop and following Ethan over to the fire escape on the other side, just narrowly missing being hit as Saunders’s security shot at them through the window. 

“You guys are still alive, right?” asked Benji as they ran down the fire escape. 

“ _Not helpful_ ,” said Brandt. 

“Yes, Benji, we're still alive,” said Ethan. “I’ll let you know right away if that changes.” 

The alley they ended up in was deserted except for, to their great fortune, a cab driver on his smoke break. He could hear people yelling in the distance - they didn’t have long before the guards caught up again, even though it seemed like none of them had been willing to jump the alley. 

“I’m so sorry,” said Ethan, gun in hand, “but I’m going to need your keys.” The cabbie, who as far as Brandt could tell was more annoyed than scared, handed them over without protest. “I’ll make sure you get it back,” said Ethan as he took off, Brandt in the passenger seat, pushing the twenty-year-old cab to far higher speeds than it should have been capable of. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------

They drove for thirty minutes - Ethan took the corners at terrifying speeds at first, and then after he was sure they weren’t being followed he slowed to blend in with the rest of the traffic. Benji talked the whole time, but once Brandt confirmed that Jane had been able to finish the mission easily thanks to their distraction he had stopped listening. The adrenaline had his heart hammering in his chest so loudly that it was difficult for him to concentrate on anything else. He lightly touched his hand to where the broken glass had lacerated his arm, and while his fingers came away wet with blood, the cut clearly wasn’t deep enough to be particularly severe. 

They abandoned the cab and then walked another ten minutes until they found a hotel. It was late, and there was nobody around to see them when they slipped in the back. Benji worked his way into the hotel's computer records and found them an empty room, and the universal key card that he’d made for them all months ago worked like a charm on the lock. They could have just paid for the night instead of skulking in like thieves, but Brandt’s bloody arm would have drawn unwanted attention, and it was better to stay off everyone's radar after abandoning the stolen cab so close. It was going to take a massive amount of paperwork to clear things up, and Brandt wasn't looking forward to it. 

“I had Jane go in the opposite direction just in case, but nobody’s following her,” said Benji. “She’ll swing around and bring you back here. Should be there in about an hour.” 

“Sounds great,” said Brandt, and then he switched off the comm. The sound of the audio feed got dizzying after a while. 

Brandt carefully peeled off his jacket and shirt - the bleeding had mostly stopped, but it started seeping again as the ripped fabric pulled at the wound. Ethan found the hotel’s little first-aid kit, and Brandt ground his teeth to keep from flinching as Ethan ran alcohol wipes over the cut. 

“It’s long but not particularly deep,” said Ethan. Brandt had figured as much. “I think the butterfly bandages should be enough to keep it together." 

The adrenaline was still coursing though his veins - he was due for a crash any minute now, but Ethan’s hands on his bare arm were just winding him up even more. His mood wasn't helped by the quiet and solitude of their stolen hotel room, or the fact that Ethan was close enough for Brandt to smell his cologne, or that Ethan’s fingers were surprisingly delicate as he patched up the wound on Brandt’s arm. Brandt still had his undershirt on, but it wasn’t doing much to keep him from feeling oddly exposed. 

He took a deep breath. The rush of the night was clearly getting to his head, developing into some sort of strange longing that he didn’t really want to deal with. He needed oxygen and space to clear his head and get him back into a professional state of mind. 

“All done,” said Ethan as he tied off the end of the gauze he’d wrapped around the butterfly bandages. 

“Thank you,” said Brandt. He gently moved his arm, then tensed it. There was pain when it moved, but not much of it. 

“You’re welcome,” said Ethan, and Brandt didn’t have much time to reflect on how deep his voice sounded before Ethan’s mouth was on his. Brandt opened his mouth to the kiss without even stopping to think about it, and then Ethan was pushing him back onto the soft pillows. 

“Why? What are you-?” asked Brandt as soon as his mouth was free, aware that he wasn’t exactly being coherent. 

Ethan laughed. “We have time to kill before Jane gets here,” he said. “And I’m too wired to just sit and wait quietly.” He shifted his body so that he was entirely on top of Brandt. 

Things were moving much, much faster than Brandt was prepared for, and he had several objections, starting and ending with the fact that _they worked together_. Their team had only just eased into a comfortable companionship. Not that there had been much strife after that first mission, but still, all the hard edges and conflicts had been worn away, and Brandt liked where they were. Fucking around was a good way for things to get awkward quickly, which is why he had previously kept any inclinations he had to himself. Although, given Ethan's behavior, it was entirely possible Brandt hadn't been as good at hiding his desires as he'd thought. 

He almost said something, but in the end he was worried that if he voiced his concerns, Ethan might actually stop rocking up against him. And at that very moment, the thought that Ethan might stop seemed like a worse fate than any potential ramifications down the line. 

“Sounds good to me,” he said, shoving his concerns to the back of his mind and wrapping his good arm around Ethan’s waist to pull him tighter. He was rewarded with a deep moan, and Ethan tugged at the hem of his undershirt, pulling it up to reveal his stomach. Then Ethan pulled back, giving himself enough space to undo Brandt’s belt and the fly on his pants, pulling everything down in one swift motion to free Brandt’s cock. 

The air in the hotel room seemed shockingly cold against his bare skin, and Brandt groaned and raised his hips up as Ethan placed his warm hand on Brandt’s cock. Ethan smiled at his obvious eagerness, slowly moving his hand up and down. 

“ _Now_ you slow down,” muttered Brandt, and Ethan laughed at that. He dropped his hand and moved, shifting himself down the bed. Before Brandt had a chance to complain about the fact that he’d stopped altogether, Ethan took his cock into his mouth. 

Brandt bucked his hips up, harder than he meant to. “Fuck,” he said, incapable of any more cohesive thought than that. His hands slipped to Ethan’s head, and he had to resist the urge to twist his fingers through Ethan’s hair too roughly. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying to distract himself from the pleasure of Ethan’s warm, wet mouth going up and down his shaft, because without some pain to distract him he was going to come way too soon. 

“Wait,” he said, once he had regained some of his senses. He pushed Ethan back, although he immediately regretted the lack of sensation around his cock. “You're still dressed,” he said, reaching down to tug at Ethan’s belt. Brandt was barely half-dressed, but Ethan hadn’t even taken off his jacket. 

Ethan undid his belt, letting Brandt tug his pants down until his erection was free. Brandt pulled him down for another kiss, pulling up at his shirt at the same time. As the kissed his erection was pressed firmly against the warm, exposed flesh of Ethan’s stomach. He bucked his hips, relishing in the feeling, and his warmth only intensified as Ethan reached down to stroke both of them at once. 

This time he didn't fight the rush. His hips jerked as he came into Ethan’s hand, and he moaned so loudly he was a little worried the rest of the hotel could hear it. Even after he came Brandt kept thrusting his hips up, and it wasn't long before Ethan followed suit and came onto his stomach, his moan much softer but just as satisfied. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Their timing was excellent - they had just finished making themselves presentable again when there was a knock at the door. Jane smiled warmly at Ethan when he let her in, but her face twisted up with concern when she looked at Brandt. “Are you alright?” she asked. “Benji didn’t say anything about you getting hurt.”

It took Brandt a second to process what she was saying, but then he looked down at the bandage on his arm. It had slipped his mind, but in all the activity of the past hour it had started to bleed lightly into the gauze. “It’s fine,” he said, smiling to reassure her. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” 

Jane did not look any less concerned. “You can take a look at it when we get back to base,” said Brandt. “Really, it’s fine. I’m just tired.” 

Jane nodded. “Well, the car’s out front. Let’s get you two back to base.” 

“Yes,” said Ethan, taking Brandt by the arm to lead him out. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
